U.S. budget experts build bridge,
but can the government cross it?

By

David Wessel

Updated April 3, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

LIKE veterans of long-ago battles, a band of deficit warriors gathered around the lunch table in Washington this week. Their mission: To generate attention to the nation's long-term fiscal woes, an issue lost in campaign clamor over Iraq, tax cuts and the housing bust.

There was Alice Rivlin, founding mother of the Congressional Budget Office and a former Clinton White House budget director; Bob Reischauer, one of her successors at CBO; and Bel Sawhill, a Clinton budget-office official, Democrats all. From the other side...